Trauma
CPTSD
CPTSD stands for Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which is an emerging term for childhood trauma. Unlike PTSD in which the trauma results from a single or an isolated series of events in ones life, CPTSD is caused by repeated instances of emotional, physical, verbal, or mental abuse over the course of months or years. This abuse results in an inability to properly regulate ones own vagal state as well as other developmental deficiencies such as difficulty in social situations and difficulty forming memories. CPTSD usually forms in childhood and if left untreated, results greater difficulty forming relationships and proper social bonds in adulthood.
Alexithymia
Alexithymia is the technical term for ‘emotional colorblindness’. People who are alexithymic have a fundamental inability to identify and name their internal emotional state. That is to say that they still experience emotions, but they are unable to properly cope with their emotions due to their inability to properly identify them.
Hyper-Vigilance
Hyper-Vigilance is a hyper awareness of the emotional state of other people. Hyper-Vigilance forms as a byproduct of complex trauma in abusive or toxic households. Children with parents that are unable to properly regulate their own emotions become sensitive to the emotional state of their unstable parent. This is a defense mechanism the child develops in order to attempt to down regulate the parents emotions in order to achieve a level of safety and security necessary to proper childhood development. As the child ages, Hyper-Vigilance can develop into a more general form in which the individual is hyper aware of the emotional state of anyone around them and they are constantly monitoring those people in search of potential threats regardless of whether the situation warrants it or not. Because these individuals have difficulty ‘turning off’ their own Hyper-Vigilance radar, they experience an increased baseline level of mental overhead that results in depression and exhaustion over long periods of time. Hyper-Vigilance is often mistaken for cognitive empathy because individuals learn the signs to ‘read’ a persons emotions but they do not necessarily understand or mirror the emotions of the person they are reading and thus they have difficulty forming genuine empathic connections with the people around them.
Toxic Inner Critic
The Toxic Inner Critic is a modern term for an internalized voice of a parent or a developed false self in which the traumatized individual is constantly and uncontrollably berating themselves over any situation or task they find themselves in regardless of whether or not that view is warranted. Over time the Toxic Inner Critic can warp or distort the individuals view of sense of self and reality resulting in depression or social isolation.